Words I Couldn't Say
by Mishafied
Summary: Poe didn't mean to wait so long. He told himself that someday he would mention to Finn that he was kind of in love with him. He just never thought that 'someday' would be when he was staring death in the face. He never thought he'd be saying 'I love you' and 'goodbye' in the same phone call.
**Author's Notes:** Fill for prompt at the tfa kink meme. I was uncertain about posting this, because I feel strange about it. Like it's not as good as my other work. Or maybe I'm just uncomfortable with the juxtaposition of dramatic action butted right up against heavy dialogue. But I had to; I've had a lifelong fascination with tornadoes, and have spent countless hours studying them. Put science in a prompt and I'm on it.

The usual disclaimers; all information is taken from extensive research gleaned from both peer reviewed scientific documents and documentary footage. All television dialogue is lifted and modified from actual live news reports tracking large, destructive tornadoes in populated areas, so it is as accurate as possible.

There will be a small amount of gore. I tried to keep it minimal whilst still maintaining realism. Tornado injuries are not clean and neat wounds. Rated mature just to be safe due to descriptions of gruesome injuries.

…I write too much damn whump.

* * *

 _He woke to pain, and wet, and cold, the kind of cold that seemed to seep straight through his bones, and all he could think was Finn, Finn, Finn. He'd told him, hadn't he?_

 _He couldn't remember. It was too much. The pain. The cold. There was pressure on his legs, on his shoulder, unbearable, and his mind grasped desperately for the words he'd said only ten minutes ago._

" _Poe, you're scaring me-"_

" _They were for you, Finn-"_

" _Finn, I love you-"_

 _Flickers of desperate conversation. Before the pain. Before the cold._

 _Before the storm._

* * *

It figured that it would be on his day off that all hell would break loose.

Jessika always joked that the town of Dakar had a bad case of small town syndrome, and that meant nothing actually exciting would ever happen. Their fire department got more calls about old ladies falling down the stairs than they did about actual fires. And while Poe could appreciate the sense of safety, he found himself sometimes wishing that they would get more calls that presented a challenge for himself and his squad.

So, given his luck, he really shouldn't have been surprised that on the day something actually happened, he was at home kicking back and playing his guitar. His fingers traced over the intricate carving of a phoenix on the face of the guitar as he studied the sheet music and made notes with his other hand; the carved pattern made the instrument one of a kind. His father had added it a long time ago, before he passed the guitar down to Poe. Before he died.

Poe glanced up at the muted television for only a moment. The weatherman was gesturing to the storm system rolling into Dakar, but this was the Midwest; it stormed here too often for Poe to get worked up about every dark cloud that rolled through. He turned back to his music, fingers moving with comfortable ease across the strings.

This wasn't a song he'd picked. Finn had mentioned he liked it when he heard it on the radio, and Poe was going through his usual ritual- he'd decided to learn it for Finn, maybe actually play it for him unlike the others he'd learned and never gotten the courage to play for him. Well, sure, he'd played the songs in Finn's presence, but usually around other friends, and without the courage to say 'hey Finn, this is for you, specifically'.

Poe had a reputation for being bold. Flirtatious. And that was true, it seemed, when it came to everyone except the one person who actually made his heart skip a beat. He could flirt all day with anyone else, but with Finn, it was…different.

It meant something. It meant a lot. Finn was his best friend, and had been for years; the last thing Poe wanted to do was screw up their friendship with possibly unrequited declarations of feelings.

He tried to distract himself from his own thoughts by humming along with the song, but it was only moments before a discordant harmony from outside clashed with the notes coming from his guitar. His fingers slipped and halted on the strings and he lifted his head, though he instantly realized what the slowly rising and falling tone was- the tornado siren. BB-8, his Corgi, lifted her head from the floor and licked her lips with an anxious whine.

It was usually a false alarm. In fact, there was an inside joke around here that the tornado siren was the signal to grab your camera and run outside. All the same, Poe grabbed the remote and unmuted the television, and then he set his guitar aside and turned up the volume.

"-exactly 5 miles…due west, and maybe half a mile south of Dakar, traveling in a northeasterly direction at about 25 miles an hour," someone was saying, their voice muffled and indistinct from the bad connection of the phone they were using. The newscaster pulled up a map with Dakar right in the middle of it- and right to the southwest of the town was a blotch of bright color, and a distinctive red hook on the back end of the storm.

Poe didn't have much training in weather, but anyone around here knew what that hook echo meant- strong rotation in the storm. A tornado.

He stood and grabbed his keys off the end table; he needed to get to the station. They would need all hands on deck if a tornado came through town. He paused, though, when they brought up a storm chaser's live feed of the tornado.

"Again, folks, we are looking live at what has become a dangerous tornado situation over the past few minutes. If you live in Dakar, you need to seek shelter," the weatherman said, and Poe's heart dropped somewhere into his feet. The tornado was _massive_ ; to someone who didn't know better, it looked like a storm had dropped down to touch the ground, a boiling, rolling mass of dark clouds. The tornado was mostly wrapped in rain, but it was unmistakably violent.

And it was less than a couple of miles from his own home and headed right for him, judging by the buildings he saw on the live feed.

He didn't have time to get to the station. Hell, he didn't have time to get anywhere. He wasn't fooled by the fact that he could only see light rain and grey clouds outside his windows- call it cliché, but there was definitely truth to the saying 'calm before the storm'.

The storm chaser interrupted again, his voice high pitched with both worry and excitement. "This thing is destroying everything it hits. I'm seeing massive, massive damage here. It's got to be almost a mile wide by now."

"If you're just tuning in, we have a tornado emergency in the area of Dakar," the weatherman added. "If you are in or around the path of this tornado, you need to take shelter immediately. You need to be below ground, or you will not survive."

Poe was already moving. He didn't have anywhere underground to go; he'd bought this place not long ago, and he didn't have the money to add any kind of tornado shelter.

He'd wondered then if he might regret not swallowing the debt and just getting it done anyway. He had his answer now.

"Come on, BB. You're about to hate me," he said, his voice unsteady as he grabbed all the pillows and blankets off the couch and led BB-8 into the narrow hallway between his kitchen and bedroom. The bathroom wouldn't be any good; it had a window. This would have to do.

Hands shaking and feeling slightly nauseous, he knelt down and pulled the corgi to him, and then began to bundle her up in multiple blankets and pillows, anything to provide protection from wind and debris.

He heard the distant boom of a transformer blowing out, and the lights flickered and went out. Without the television blaring, he finally heard it; a low, distant rumble that was growing louder by the second.

And suddenly, with a massive tornado nearly at his doorstep and real fear like a heavy shroud over every thought, all he wanted to do was to talk to Finn.

He sat down against the wall and dragged the wiggling, disgruntled dog into his lap, though she couldn't struggle much as bound up in pillows and blankets as she was. He dug in his pocket and pulled out his phone, his fingers trembling so badly that he fumbled and almost dropped the phone as he pulled up Finn's number and tapped the screen to call him. Luckily, it seemed the cell towers hadn't been hit.

He'd never been this scared before, and he ran into burning buildings for a living. He knew what tornados could do, and this one…it was the biggest one he'd ever seen, even from the brief glimpse of it on the television.

Finn was at work, and Poe knew he wasn't allowed to answer his phone at work, but he had to try. He needed to hear Finn's voice, needed to…well, to say goodbye. He wasn't getting out of this one. No tornado shelter, his home wasn't built to withstand the winds, and he could hear the roar getting ever closer; he hoped he had at least enough time to say goodbye before it hit.

The phone rang three times before Finn finally picked up. "Poe," he said, which made sense- he wouldn't have answered if anyone else's name had come up on his phone. Not at work. And Poe wouldn't call him there unless it was important. "Is everything okay?"

Poe smiled, barely. Of course Finn guessed that something wasn't quite right. "Finn, hey. I, uh…listen, I needed to talk to you."

Understatement of the year. God, he'd never get the words out in time at this rate.

"What's going on? You sound…wait, what is that _sound_? Where are you?"

Poe tightened his grip on BB-8; she was beginning to panic as the sound got louder. "I'm at home. This storm, it's…it's bad, Finn. Really bad. I need you to do me a favor, buddy- look after BB-8 for me, will you? I've got her all bundled up, she'll probably be fine-"

"What are you talking about? Poe, what's going on?" Finn asked, a frantic edge to his voice. Poe flinched as he heard something large smack into the side of his house, and then a snapping noise from above, probably shingles being stripped off his roof.

"Listen to me, Finn, please. I've got to say this now or I never will," Poe said, finally finding the courage even as he had to raise his voice to be heard over the roar.

"Poe, you're scaring me-"

"Shut up for a second. Just…you know that time you came over and there were roses on the table, and I said they were for my date that night? I lied. They were for you, Finn, I just…I chickened out. I couldn't…"

It was getting harder to even hear his own voice. It sounded like a 747 was barreling down his street in slow motion, and the floor and walls around him were beginning to shake, as if this was the start of an earthquake and not a tornado.

"Poe, you _asshole_ ," Finn said, the words not truly angry, but breathless. "You don't get to do this. You don't get to say that shit and then check out on me. I'm coming to get you, okay?"

Poe wanted to laugh. By the time Finn got here, there may not be much to find. He'd seen what was left of tornado victims with his own eyes once before, when an EF-3 hit the edge of town; he didn't want Finn to find him like that. Just the thought of putting Finn through that made his stomach turn.

"No, Finn, don't-"

"Shut up, okay? I'll be there. And you're going to be okay. You're going to be _fine_."

Poe didn't catch every word. The sound was overwhelming, a freight train bearing down on his house, and he clutched tighter to the bundled up dog in his lap.

"Finn, I love you-"

A violent _crack_ and a sharp wind down the hallway cut him off mid-sentence, and he looked up to see daylight streaming in where part of the roof had been torn away. Then, as quickly as the grey light had broken through, it was replaced with black and wind and _chaos_.

Poe thought he heard Finn yell his name, but he had dropped the phone so he could wrap one arm around the panicking bundle of dog and bend his other arm up and over his head to try and protect it. His ears popped almost painfully, and it sounded like every window in the house exploded at once. The pressure was incredible, and for a moment he felt _deaf_ , the changing air pressure a tightening vice on his skull.

The wall cracked behind him, and then it was just gone, like it had never been there at all. He could feel debris hitting him, but it didn't hurt- shouldn't it hurt? He squeezed his eyes shut as the wind slammed into him, shoving him across the glass strewn floor, and BB-8 was torn away from him despite the tight grip he had on her.

He didn't have a chance to open his eyes and try to look for her before the wind body-slammed him from a different direction, and he slid and hit _something_ before he was thrown into the air like he'd been launched out of a catapult.

It was like those first few moments of free fall during a skydive, only he had no control over direction, no control over _anything_ , and he wasn't about to open his eyes, not with this much debris in the air. He could still feel the debris hitting him, and the smell was powerful- like freshly cut grass, and chopped wood, like the smell of summer on steroids.

It felt like forever, though it could only have been a few seconds, and then the pain began to set in like a deep ache all over and a sledgehammer in his head, and he couldn't breath; it was like the wind was strong enough to even pull the air from his lungs. Then the wind pushed him down, and the world went white, then black.

* * *

He woke to pain, and wet, and cold, the kind of cold that seemed to seep straight through his bones, and all he could think was Finn, Finn, Finn. He'd told him, hadn't he?

He couldn't remember. It was too much. The pain. The cold. There was pressure on his legs, on his shoulder, unbearable, and his mind grasped desperately for the words he'd said only ten minutes ago.

" _Poe, you're scaring me-"_

" _They were for you, Finn-"_

" _Finn, I love you-"_

Flickers of desperate conversation. Before the pain. Before the cold.

Before the storm.

He tried to open his eyes, but even that sent him spiraling into a dizzy spell, left his mind as much a wreck as his body seemed to be. He felt like he was dying. He _knew_ he was dying.

He closed his eyes and stopped trying to make sense of the chaos.

 _Finn, I'm sorry._

* * *

Finn was, as usual, bored at work. The factory job paid well, and that was pretty much the only reason he was standing here, pulling boxes off the conveyor as they rolled in; he had to go through each box and make sure all the parts inside had no anomalies or faults from production. They would eventually end up in car engines, somewhere down the line, but to Finn, they were just parts. Boring, metal parts. He'd done this so much the past few months he could probably pinpoint the faulty ones in his sleep.

In fact, he'd had a few dreams that had involved nothing but sorting parts. It was kind of sad, actually.

The money almost wasn't worth the environment. It seemed like every week they gave his department a higher quota, even though they were struggling with their goals already. Between the abuse from management and unrealistic expectations, Finn could practically feel his soul shriveling away as he worked.

He couldn't hear the thunder outside over the sound of the machinery inside. He was only vaguely aware that it was supposed to storm today.

Needless to say, he wasn't expecting a call from Poe. Poe knew that Finn's manager, an imposing woman that just went by her last name, Phasma, would tear him a new one if she caught him on his phone during his shift. He heard his phone start to ring, and though it got looks of disapproval from nearby coworkers, he dug it out of his pocket to glance at the screen.

It was Poe. Poe knew when Finn worked; he wouldn't call him unless it was important. Like, 'life and death' important. Finn decided he could deal with Phasma's wrath; he needed to take this. He stepped back from the line and tapped the touch screen to answer, lifting the phone to his ear.

"Poe, is everything okay?" he said, voice already tinged with worry.

"Finn, hey. I, uh…listen, I needed to talk to you."

There was something off about Poe's voice. He sounded…nervous. Scared. And there was something in the background- a train? What the hell would Poe be doing at a train station? "What's going on? You sound…wait, what is that _sound_? Where are you?" Finn asked, ignoring the downright nasty looks he was getting from his coworkers. He didn't care if he got the whole line put on probation; something wasn't right with Poe.

"I'm at home. This storm, it's…it's bad, Finn. Really bad," Poe said, and all at once, the realization hit Finn- that wasn't a train. It was the storm. The storm was bad enough that it sounded like a constant mechanical roar in the background. "I need you to do me a favor, buddy- look after BB-8 for me, will you? I've got her all bundled up, she'll probably be fine-"

Wait, why the hell was Poe talking like he was about to die or something? Finn shook his head, his heart beating somewhere in his throat. This wasn't right. "What are you talking about? Poe, what's going on?"

"Listen to me, Finn, please. I've got to say this now or I never will,"

"Poe, you're scaring me-"

"Shut up for a second," Poe said, his voice nearly frantic now, and Finn's jaw clicked shut. He was having to strain to hear Poe over the noise, and he was just beginning to suspect that it wasn't just a storm. Not just your average storm force winds. Without thinking, he was already moving toward the break room to get his jacket and his keys from his locker as Poe continued to speak. "Just…you know that time you came over and there were roses on the table, and I said they were for my date that night? I lied. They were for you, Finn, I just…I chickened out. I couldn't…"

"Poe, you _asshole_ ," Finn snapped, too worried to be anything but frustrated that Poe had picked right now to do this. Seriously, who decided to confess their love on the same phone call where they were saying 'I'm probably going to die, take care of my psycho dog'? Poe Dameron. Poe Dameron did that, because of course he would. "You don't get to do this. You don't get to say that shit and then check out on me. I'm coming to get you, okay?"

"No, Finn, don't-"

Finn was already grabbing his jacket and keys from the locker- well, Poe's jacket, actually; the one Finn had borrowed and then Poe refused to take back. "Shut up, okay? I'll be there. And you're going to be okay. You're going to be _fine_."

"Finn, I love you-"

Finn barely heard the words before there was a loud bang on the other end of the line, and the thunderous roar got so loud Finn had to pull the phone away from his ear for a moment. "Poe!" he yelled into the phone, but then the line went eerily silent. The call had cut off.

Finn turned for the door just as it swung open and Phasma stepped through. "2187, who gave you permission to step off the line? You are aware that phone use on company hours is strictly prohibited," she said, towering over Finn and making a point of using his employee number instead of his name.

It usually intimidated him into falling back in line. Not this time.

"My name is Finn. And my friend is in trouble. I'm leaving," he said, pushing past her and into the hallway leading to the exit. She followed a few steps behind.

"If you don't get back on that line, you don't have a job, 2187," she said, and Finn flipped her the middle finger without looking back.

"Guess I don't have a job, then," he said as he pushed the door open and stepped outside. Looking in the direction of Poe's neighborhood on the edge of town, his breath caught when he saw the towering, churning storm cloud, tinged with green and filling the entire sky to the northeast of him. He couldn't see the tornado, but he didn't need to see the funnel to know that looked _bad_.

It was a fifteen minute drive to get there, usually. And if he ran into the damage path, it would probably take longer. Undeterred, he ran to his truck and jumped inside, already hitting the speed dial for Jessika's phone as he backed out. The fire station phone would be ringing off the hook for sure, but Jessika would answer her personal phone, he knew it.

Her greeting was clipped short and voice strained when she picked up. "Jessika, I just heard from Poe. We have to get over there," he said, not bothering with pleasantries, because well…tornado and all.

"You heard from him? Is he okay? That tornado just went right through Hargrove Court, we're going to head there to look for people as soon as the worst of this passes us," she said, and Finn could hear the dampened sound of the fire truck's sirens in the background.

"I don't know. He got cut off, it was…it was right before it hit, Jess. I think his house got hit."

"That thing is over a mile wide now. I'd be surprised if any house on that road didn't get hit," Jessika muttered. "Listen, I know telling you to stay put would be fucking stupid, because you won't. So look out for downed power lines, and don't drive into the back of that storm trying to get there. The downdraft off the back of that thing is still strong enough to throw a car. Got it?"

Finn had no plan of driving any closer to that storm than he had to. The rain was getting heavy even just driving toward the back end of it. "Got it. I'll meet you guys there," he agreed, hanging up just as the damage path started to come into view.

At first it didn't look so bad; trees knocked over, roofs torn off, some debris strewn around, but people were walking around and seemed okay. If this was the worst of it, the sound he heard was probably the roof coming off Poe's house, and the wind probably caught the phone.

He didn't manage to cling to that idea for long as he got closer and closer to Poe's street.

And when he finally turned the corner and stopped in front of two police cars blocking off the road, he had to fight the urge to lose hope entirely.

There was _nothing_ left. The mangled, bent street sign was the only way he knew it was Poe's street, but everything beyond looked like it had been blown up, then bulldozed. The houses were like piles of oversized matchsticks scattered on bare foundations. He didn't even know where to start; there were no familiar landmarks to work from.

Any other day he could get to Poe's house blindfolded. But this? This was nothing but a street covered in wreckage.

He pulled to the side of the road and left his truck; between the police blockade and the debris in the road, nothing would be driving any closer. He broke into a jog as he tried to remember how far down the block Poe's house was, or pinpoint anything that would give him a reference to work from.

Other people were stumbling around in the rain, dazed, or helping dig through the wreckage looking for family and friends. He could hear cries from people trapped, and he tried not to dwell on the sight of bodies strewn in the destroyed homes, or what looked to be body parts amidst the wreckage.

He passed three bodies just getting past the first few houses, but they couldn't be Poe. No, Poe was alive. Finn knew it. He had to be. He had a sort of tunnel vision; right now, anything that didn't lead him closer to Poe wasn't worth his attention.

He finally saw something he recognized; Poe's red and black motorcycle. It wasn't parked in the driveway- instead, it was twisted in the branches of a tree stripped clean of its bark, like a macabre decoration. He tried not to think about what the tornado could have done to a human if it had done that to a motorcycle. He shivered, not entirely because of the chill from the rain.

"Poe!" he yelled, cupping his hands around his mouth, but there was no answer. There was, though, movement under a half-collapsed wall, and then a mud-covered dog was wiggling free of it. It took a moment for him to realize it was BB-8; she was coated in mud and dirt, almost unrecognizable.

"BB!" he said, kneeling down and making sure she wasn't bleeding or anything. She seemed fine, not even a limp.

Poe did say he'd tried to keep her safe. Of course he'd succeeded in that.

But BB-8 didn't stay put; she barked at Finn and then started struggling over the wreckage on her short, stubby legs. On a hunch, Finn followed her past the foundation and on to the next destroyed house, until she finally stopped and started scratching at a wall that looked like it had been thrown through the rubble and tipped over-

-then Finn saw the hand and arm sticking out from under the wall.

"Poe!" he choked out, ignoring the danger of broken boards and exposed nails as he stumbled to the wall. He gripped it with both hands, and luckily it was already nearly snapped in the middle; it made it easier to leverage it up and off his friend even as his fingers slipped on the slick surface, letting it fall to the side.

But when he saw Poe, his stomach took a dive.

There wasn't a single inch of his skin that wasn't covered in dirt or smeared blood. His clothing was torn, and there were places on his arms and neck where it looked like the top layer of skin had been sandblasted away. Blood dripped from two cuts on his forehead, and his legs were still pinned under what looked like one of the decorative wrought iron support pillars that were usually holding up the cover to his neighbor's porch.

But worst was the jagged, long piece of wood that was impaled straight through his left shoulder. It was smeared red and splintered, and Finn didn't dare try to move it or Poe to see if it was speared all the way through.

Poe looked _dead_. He was in one piece, but he wasn't moving. Finn carefully knelt down next to him and reached out, pressing his hand lightly on Poe's chest until he felt the barely-there rise and fall of him taking a breath.

Alive. He was alive. Not only that, but at Finn's touch, he made a soft noise and his head moved, barely.

"Poe, man, don't move. Can you hear me?" he asked, swallowing down the nausea as he tried not to look at the bloodied wood skewered through his best friend's shoulder. He wasn't expecting an answer, and he didn't get one- but Poe did open his eyes, though they looked…distant. Like he wasn't really aware. Which was probably for the best, all things considered.

Poe was a firefighter and the toughest son of a bitch Finn knew, but anyone was bound to panic if they woke up impaled on building materials.

He tried to distract Poe from it, all the same. He reached over and cupped the side of Poe's face, tilting his head away from the gruesome injury, trying to keep it out of his line of sight and leaning over him to try and block some of the rain. "Hey, you. You promised me free pizza next time I came over, and I'm not seeing any pizza," he said, trying to keep the panic out of his voice. He needed to find help; Poe needed an ambulance, badly. Finn wasn't sure he could free him from the wreckage without hurting him more.

"F-Finn…?" Poe managed, his voice weak and shaky, and Finn could have cried with relief. It couldn't be that bad if Poe was talking, right? Maybe it wasn't as bad as it looked.

He could pretend, anyway.

"Yeah, it's me. Just hold still, okay? There's like, nails and shit around, I don't want you to stick yourself with one."

 _Because a nail would be so much worse than the fuckin' beam speared through his shoulder. Good going, Finn,_ he thought. But if all went well, he could keep Poe's attention off of that for as long as possible.

"What happened?" Poe asked, though the words were slurred together, barely understandable. He looked confused, dazed- and his whole body was starting to tremble.

Shit. He was going into shock.

Red lights flashed across the wreckage, and Finn looked up to see the fire engine pulling onto the street. He sighed with relief, still keeping one hand on Poe's face, trying to block his view of his shoulder. "There was a storm, but you're gonna be okay. I promised, remember? I said you'd be fine," he said, rubbing his thumb gently through the dirt, blood, and rainwater streaked across Poe's cheek. Poe's eyes fluttered shut, and Finn felt his throat tighten. "Hey, stay with me. Open your eyes. Come on, you don't get to wimp out on me now, not after that damn phone call."

"M'cold," Poe said, his teeth nearly chattering as he opened his eyes again; and even though Finn knew it was probably more the shock than actual cold, he immediately shrugged off his jacket and carefully laid it over Poe, having to work it around the jagged wood in his shoulder. And unfortunately, that drew Poe's attention to the fact that he was impaled on a piece of wood, and he went about two shades paler.

"F-Fuck," he choked out, but Finn cupped his face again, making him look away from the injury.

"Hey. It's not as bad as it looks. You're going to be okay," he insisted, and then he leaned down and pressed a quick kiss to Poe's lips- both to distract him, and to give him that answer that he hadn't been able to during the panic of the phone call. "You're going to be alright," he added, barely a breath between his lips and Poe's, and he felt more than saw the minuscule nod in reply.

He looked up then in time to see Jess and Snap out of the fire engine and surveying the damage; they looked as disoriented as Finn had been when he first reached the obliterated street. He waved his free hand until he saw her eyes lock onto him, and then he turned his attention back to Poe; he had to keep him conscious until Jess and Snap got over here. He didn't know what the hell to do; he just knew the symptoms of shock, and that it was really, really bad.

Poe muttered something that Finn couldn't completely make out, but he did recognize 'BB', and he forced a smile. "BB's fine, Poe. She's right here with me, she doesn't even have a scratch on her. You did good," he said, and he knew he was rambling, but he couldn't help it. He felt like his insides were twisting into knots, and he felt helpless; his best friend was laying here dying, and there was nothing he could do.

But at least he had some help now. He saw Jess's features harden into a frown when she got close enough to see Poe's condition, but to her credit, she didn't hesitate. She knelt down and set her bag beside her, eyes going over every injury.

"Snap, go have the guys bring a stretcher over here. Finn, you're going to help me move this thing," she said, gesturing to the iron pillar across Poe's legs. She leaned over Poe and reached up to push his hair back from his forehead- it was both an obvious motion of comfort, and a way to better see the cuts on his forehead. "Hey, Dameron. You really don't do half-measures, do you?" she asked, though the joke felt a little weak, even to Finn.

Poe didn't reply; the shivering only got worse as his eyes fell shut again, and Finn immediately checked to make sure he was still breathing.

"Come on, help me with this," Jess said, grabbing onto one end of the iron pillar. Finn stood and grabbed the other end, and between the two of them, they moved it off Poe's legs.

Which presented another set of injuries- where the pillar had fallen, the skin and muscle was flayed open all the way to the stark white bone, and Finn had to squeeze his eyes shut for a few seconds to fight back a whole new wave of nausea.

Jessika, probably having seen this much and worse before, took it in stride. Finn caught her eye as Snap arrived with a few others, carrying a stretcher and laying it down as best they could in the rubble. Jess took the jacket off Poe so they could move him to the stretcher, and she handed it back to Finn with an apologetic look at the streaks of blood on it.

"Jess, will he…." he started, but he couldn't finish the question. He wasn't sure he wanted to know the answer, wasn't sure he could handle it.

"You know we'll do our damn best, Finn," she said, which…wasn't what he wanted to hear, but it would have to do. Jess wasn't the type to sugar coat things; she would have told him if it was hopeless. She returned to help Snap, who was getting ready to cut the impaled wood down to a more manageable length to move around with; obviously they couldn't remove it here, but they couldn't move him without cutting it down shorter.

Finn couldn't watch anymore. He could still feel the sticky warmth of his friend's blood on his hands, and he was shaking with fear and nausea at the thought of losing him.

He stepped back to let the firefighters work, but something crunched under his foot and nearly sent him off balance; he managed to catch himself and step to the side, then looked down to see what he'd put his foot through.

It was Poe's guitar. The tornado had destroyed it; the neck of it was torn away, the strings a tangled mess, and the back was shattered. Finn winced; Poe loved his guitar, and it meant the world to him. It was one of the few things he had left that his dad had given him.

Finn reached down and turned the guitar over to see the face of it. By some miracle, the front face with the phoenix carving was mostly intact. The carving was in one piece, just caked with mud. Finn swallowed hard, then grabbed onto the faceplate of the guitar and pulled; in a few moments, he'd pulled the section free that had the carving on it.

He could at least save that much for Poe.

* * *

The final death toll came to 26 people. Nine of those deaths had been on Poe's street.

According to Jessika, if Finn had been ten minutes slower in finding Poe and getting help to him, the death toll would have been one higher.

It was little consolation when Finn spent the week practically living in the ICU waiting room, stealing the brief visits with Poe that he was allowed. He left only to go home and shower, assure his family two states away that he was okay, and two visits to the small guitar shop here in town.

The tornado had wreaked havoc on a swathe of the small town. It turned out that the house that he'd found Poe and the guitar in wasn't even Poe's house; the tornado had picked him up and thrown him 75 yards away and into a different house.

Poe had cuts and bruises, rash-like injuries where the dirt and sand in the violent wind had literally sandblasted skin off, the gaping wound in his shoulder, the bone deep lacerations to his legs, and on top of all that, a shattered wrist and three broken ribs. He was lucky to be alive at all- and he had a long road to recovery ahead.

For the better part of the past week, Poe had been heavily sedated. He'd been aware of Finn being there, but in no condition to actually communicate. But Jessika called Finn this morning on his second trip to the guitar shop to let him know that they'd taken Poe off most of the sedatives- which meant the only thing fogging his mind would be the painkillers. Which meant actual conversation.

Finn was nervous, and he couldn't pinpoint one single reason why.

But he'd stood in the hallway holding a guitar case for too long. The nurses were starting to give him odd looks; he couldn't put this off forever. He took a deep breath and stepped into the room, setting the guitar case by the door out of sight before he walked past the curtain dividing the room.

Poe had the head of the bed angled up so he could sit back against it, and he looked leagues better than last time Finn had seen him. Sure, he still had more bandages showing than skin, and his shoulder and arm were tightly bound in a sling-type wrap, but his skin actually had some color, and his eyes were bright and aware when he looked up from the book on his lap.

"Please tell me you brought something better than trashy romance novels. Jess left these here, probably just to laugh at my expense when she gets here," he said in greeting, and even though his voice was weak and a bit rough, Finn had never been more relieved to hear it. He grinned and moved to sit down by the bed.

"I'll bring you some better reading material next time," Finn promised, shifting awkwardly in the chair. "How are you feeling…?"

"Like I got tossed around by a tornado, strangely enough," Poe said with a weak laugh, looking down at his bandaged, bound arm. "The doctor wasn't too keen to say what actually happened to do all this, but I'm guessing I got thrown. Tornado and all. I don't really remember much."

Finn smirked. Of course Poe would know when the doctor was trying to take it easy on him, not dump too much information on a traumatized person. Finn knew Poe better than that, though; he was incredibly tough, mentally and physically, and not knowing would be worse for him than having it plainly laid out.

"About 75 yards, actually. I found you in Mr. Reinhardt's house. Or what used to be his house, anyway," he explained, and Poe blinked in shock. Then, his eyes widened.

"Is BB-8 okay? I thought I remembered her being there, but…"

"She's fine. Leia's letting her stay at the station until you get to go home," Finn said, and Poe's face fell at the last word. He looked down again, with a sound that wasn't quite a laugh.

"That'll be tough. My house is probably scrap lumber."

"About that," Finn said, once again nervous; he rubbed the back of his neck and looked away for a moment to gather his thoughts. "Look, I have that extra room in my apartment that I wasn't using since my roommate moved out. And everyone sort of pitched in, so…I got a guest bed in there, and Snap and Jess bought you some clothes to replace the stuff you lost. Once you get out of the hospital, I…you should come stay with me, for a while. At least until you get back on your feet. Like, literally and figuratively. Cause you sort of had an iron beam land on your legs, so…it'll take time."

He realized he was rambling, and he shut himself up and finally looked back up at Poe- only to find that his friend was smiling. And if he wasn't mistaken, that smile looked a little…bashful.

"You guys did all that…for me?" he asked, as if it were hard to believe. Finn scoffed.

"Are you kidding, Poe? I didn't even have to ask. Your squad at the station was taking up a collection before you even got out of your first surgery. They were worried sick. _I_ was worried sick," he said, not even worried about saying it out loud now.

He'd almost lost Poe; he wasn't going to bite his tongue anymore.

"I'm sorry," Poe said, but Finn stopped him short with a sharp look.

"No. Don't apologize for worrying us. That's not your fault," he said. "So, I'll take that as a yes? I mean, you don't have to stay with me if you don't want to. We could...get you a hotel, or something-"

"No, I…I'd love to. If I wouldn't be in the way or anything-" Poe started, but he had to pause when he shifted his weight and promptly choked back a cry of pain. He squeezed his eyes shut and clenched his jaw for a few moments, and Finn stood, his hand hovering over Poe's arm- there didn't seem to be any place to touch that wasn't bandaged.

"Are you okay? Do you need me to get someone?" he asked, and Poe shook his head, slowly opening his eyes again.

"No, I'm fine. Really. It just…hurts to move," he said, starting to breathe slowly again. "Listen, Finn, I wanted to apologize. Not for worrying you, but…for the phone call."

"Poe…"

"It wasn't fair of me to do that," Poe interrupted him, looking down, his voice still strained a bit with pain. "I shouldn't have waited and dumped all of that on you all at once. It…wasn't fair to you."

Finn swallowed hard. "Why didn't you tell me before?"

"You're my best friend, Finn," Poe said, looking up with a weak smile. "I didn't want to fuck that up. I didn't know…if you felt the same. I didn't want to ruin what we had."

"Jesus, Poe, nothing you said could make me feel different about you. Except for maybe 'hey, I'm about to die, could you watch my dog, and by the way I'm in love with you'," Finn pointed out, and Poe started to laugh, but cut himself off with a wince and a sharp breath. Right, broken ribs.

"Well, when you put it like that, it does sound ridiculous."

"Yeah. So don't pull that shit again, okay?"

Poe gave Finn a _look_. "I don't think you can do the whole 'love confession' thing twice."

"Exactly why I would have preferred not to do mine while you're lying on your near-death bed, but beggars can't be choosers, right?" Finn said with a smile, and it took a moment, but then Poe's eyes widened a little and he stuttered.

"Really?" he finally managed, and Finn laughed.

"Yeah, really. I love you, you moron. And I brought a present for you," he said, and he went to the door and picked up the guitar case, then carried it back and set it on the edge of the bed. "I found your guitar in the wreckage, but…it was kind of a lost cause. I know how much it meant to you."

Poe swallowed hard, hesitating before reaching out to the clasps on the case. "You didn't have to get me a new one, buddy…"

"I kind of didn't. Sort of," Finn said, and when Poe gave him a confused look, he just nodded toward the case. "Open it."

Poe unsnapped the clasps and opened the case, and took in a sharp breath- which led to a wince of pain, but that was obviously the last thing on his mind. The guitar in the case was a gorgeous dark wood, just like his old one had been- and the carving his father made was inset into the new wood, the only piece of the old guitar that had been salvageable. He ran his fingers across the carved lines lightly, the same way Finn had seen him do when he practiced or took a break between songs.

"The guy who owns the guitar shop downtown made this for free. Said it was an honor to help," Finn explained, and then he realized Poe was blinking back tears.

He'd never seen Poe cry. Not once. "Are you alright?" he asked, a bit worried now, and Poe immediately nodded.

"Yeah. Yeah, Finn, I'm…I'm more than alright. This is…" he started, but he seemed to decide against finishing the sentence; instead, he reached up with his less injured arm and tugged Finn down into a kiss.

That was more than a good enough thank you for Finn.

* * *

It was a few more weeks before Finn agreed to take Poe back to where his house had once stood, and only if he agreed to actually use his wheelchair without being an asshole about it. Physical therapy or not, Poe was still weak, and his legs were still healing from the gruesome gouges that had been carved into them.

A good amount of the debris had been removed from the street. Piles of rubble were still gathered in a few spots by the road, waiting to be picked up and hauled to the dump, so some of the foundations lay bare. With no hurry to rebuild, Poe's house still had some scattered debris; he'd already decided he couldn't bring himself to live there again.

Finn had been on this road twice since the tornado hit, once right after, and again to sort through the debris to see if anything could be salvaged. He'd forgotten how shocking the sight was until he saw how shaken up Poe looked as Finn helped him out of the car; for once, he dropped down into the wheelchair without complaint, staring at the piles of twisted wood and metal where a house once stood.

"I've seen tornado damage before, but…nothing like this," he said softly, and Finn set a hand on his uninjured shoulder.

"That's what 300 mile per hour winds will do to a place," he muttered. "You got lucky, Poe. Real lucky."

"I know."

Silence fell for a few long moments, and then Poe chuckled. Finn gave him an odd look. "Really? Are you laughing?" he asked, though he couldn't help but laugh too, at the ridiculousness of it.

Poe just shook his head. "We need to move. Out of the apartment, I mean," he said, and Finn frowned.

"Um…why?"

"Because I want a damn storm cellar."

Finn laughed out loud then, and leaned over to kiss the top of Poe's head. "Soon as you're back at work and I'm settled in my new job, we'll move. And storm cellars will be the first thing we ask about."

Poe grinned up at him, and it was like stepping into warm sunlight. "Have I mentioned how much I love you?" Poe asked, and Finn took in a sharp breath, then leaned over again, this time to kiss Poe on the lips.

"Yeah, but I'll never get tired of hearing it," he said softly, kissing Poe one more time before pulling away.

"Come on. Let's go home."


End file.
